So those who have zain usb wireless notice that it keeps disconnecting, the reason is that Microsoft released an update on 2008 to shutdown any device connected to the computer to save power. Windwos turns off the USB wireless device because it doesn’t notice that it is using the internet. There are many solutions to this, you can write  a program that loop on the command “dir G:” Where G is the drive name that the USB uses. Anyways the easy way is:

Start–>ControlPanle–>NetworkAndInternet—>NetworkAndSharingCenter–>ChangeAdapterSettings

Right Click on “Mobile Broadband Connection” —>Properties—>Configure—->PowerManagment

Unchek “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power”

Hit ok and you are done !!! Enjoy surfing

Here is how:

1. Compose a new message
2. in the To field type the phone number followed by @carrierdomainname
3. Example: number@carrierdomain

Here is a list of carrierdomains for different companies:

If you don’t know the cell phone’s service carrier, visit whitepages.com or phonenumber.com/reverse-phone, and enter the 10-digit cell phone number using the reverse lookup feature. If you’re lucky, it’ll list the carrier. If the carrier’s domain isn’t listed above, check its Web site.

Keep in mind that text messages aren’t always free. The recipient might be charged for the message.

Resource: Tech Republic – Susan Harkins

I finally just finished installing a dual boot XP 64bit and Ubuntu 64bit on a high end machine and shared the files between the Linux and another machine that has XP 64bit through a crossover cable. Sharing the files between linux and windows was new to me, I didn’t know that Linux cannot see windows shares without installing a special tool called Samba. In this article I will do my best to explain the process of sharing a files between linux and windows to save other people the headache of searching for the solution from different resources.

• The basic steps – will go quickly over them

Now we have 2 machines, 1 with XP installed and the other one has Linux Ubuntu

On the windows machine select the folder that you want to share, share it and give it a share name say “WinShare”
Assign the NIC card on both the windows machine and Linux an IP Address, Subnet and default gateway.
Windows: 192.168.1.100 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.1
Linux: 192.168.1.101 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.1

Have a user name with password on the Linux and windows machine

Windows: Username: Administrator  Password: Musab
Linux: Username:Musab Password:Musab   OR username: root password:Musab

• Installing Samba

now that both are connected, windows can see linux shares but the other way around so will need to install a tool called Samba

Open the terminal and log-in as root using the sudo command or sudo su on some new Ubuntu versions

Type  apt-get install samba smbfs

Now that you have it installed, let’s configure it, edit the configuration file by entering the command

gedit /etc/samba/smb.conf

Find the following section in the file

####### Authentication #######

# “security = user” is always a good idea. This will require a Unix account
# in this server for every user accessing the server. See

Delete the first line that starts with #”security =

replace it with

security = user
username map = /etc/samba/smbusers

This will tell Samba to look in the smbusers file to get the list of usernames and passwords

Now let’s create a Samba user account, replace <username> with any name you prefer

smbpasswd -a <username>

in out example I will use MusabSamba –>  smbpasswd -a MusabSamba

Now we will need to add that user to the smbusers file we discissed earlier

gedit /etc/samba/smbusers

In the file type the following, replacing the first username with your Linux username and the second with Samba username we created earlier

<username> = “<username>”

In out example its    <Musab>=”<MusabSamba>”

I added this line too just for being paranoid o make it work <root>=”<MusabSamba>”

Now you can create the shares, next step I will walk you through the steps of mounting windows shares

• Mounting Windows Shares:

Open the terminal, and login as root

First you will need to add some lines to the /etc/hosts files

gedit /etc/hosts

Give the windows machine any name by adding the line

192.168.1.100   anyName

Save and close the file. Create a new folder where the share will appear

mkdir /mnt/winFiles

Edit the /etc/fstab file and add the following (Notice the windows machine name we assigned and the folder we created)

//anyName/winFiles  /mnt/winFiles  cifs exec,credentials=/etc/cifspw 0 0

Notice the line will use a file called cifspw that contains the credentials, let create the file

gedit /etc/cifspw

In this file you need to add the username and password for the windows machine we discussed earlier

username=Administrator
password=Musab

Save and close. Now secure the file with this command

chmod 600 /etc/cifspw

finally type

mount -a

You should see the shared folder under /mnt/winFiles or under Places tab and click network.

-Enjoy